10 hottest ISA shares, funds and trusts: week ended 18 July 2025

We look at the investments ii customers have been buying within their ISAs during the previous week. The data includes only real-time trades, not regular investing instructions, and combines the use of both existing funds and new money.

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Top 10 shares in ISAs

Small-cap battery metals miner Metals One (LSE:MET1) remains the most-bought stock in ISAs on the ii platform for a second week.

A month-long recovery from the 7p mid-June low to 29p on 11 July ended abruptly last week. On Thursday, the stock briefly traded just below 10p before attracting speculative buying.

An announcement at the start of the week confirmed the company had executed a binding sale & purchase agreement to buy Mjolner Minerals (Norway) AS, which owns the Lillefjellklumpen project in central Norway. It’s an exploration licence hosting high-grade platinum group elements, gold, nickel, and copper mineralisation. Completion of regulatory approvals in Norway are expected in August.

Metals One also completed the purchase of an initial 10% interest in NovaCore Exploration, which is involved in the Red Basin uranium project in New Mexico.  

GSK (LSE:GSK) returns to the top 10 list for the first time since mid-May, with investors dosing up on the pharmaceutical giant’s stock that slumped to a multi-month low. Shares fell on news an advisory committee of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had voted against the benefit/risk profile of its multiple myeloma drug Blenrep.

“The likelihood of regulatory approval significantly decreased ahead of [a formal decision] on 23 July,” said Morgan Stanley analysts, given the FDA had flagged several concerns.

Barratt Redrow (LSE:BTRW) sits just above sector peer Taylor Wimpey, making its debut here in third place. Barratt shares slumped on Monday after the housebuilder flagged disappointing home completions for the year to the end of June. “The London housing market has been particularly challenging with weak demand from both domestic and international homebuyers,” said the company.

An uncertain economic outlook in the UK has been an overhang for the entire UK housebuilding sector, and this update did little to suggest dark clouds were shifting anytime soon. Still, Barratt shares extended losses since early June to 25%, enough to attract bargain hunters.

Discount supermarket B&M European Value Retail SA (LSE:BME)makes a rare appearance in the top 10 for all the wrong reasons. Its share price hit a new low following a weaker-than-expected 1.3% increase in UK first-quarter like-for-like sales. There was also disappointment at lower trading gross margin year-on-year, caused by deflation in average selling prices.

easyJet (LSE:EZJ) nabbed top spot here exactly a year ago. This time, interest in the shares was triggered by a 7% slump to April prices amid concerns about higher costs and industrial action by French air traffic controllers.

Further down the stock market food chain, £5 million oil & gas explorer Empyrean Energy (LSE:EME) surged sixfold. That followed news that Conrad Asia Energy, operator of the Mako gas field, had signed a sale and purchase deal for natural gas with Indonesian state-owned power company PLN Persero. Empyrean has an 8.5% interest in the field.

Oxford BioDynamics (LSE:OBD) shares trebled in value briefly last week as investors read a report by drug giant Pfizer that “strongly support” the use of the company’s EpiSwitch blood-based biomarkers to evaluate the state of tissues and tumours in cancer patients.

"The results from the published Pfizer study are a powerful endorsement for our blood-based biomarker EpiSwitch technology,” said the UK diagnostics company’s chief scientific officer Dr Alexandre Akoulitchev.

Top 10 funds and trusts in ISAs

Five funds held onto their places in the list of 10 most-bought collectives in ISAs last week: Royal London Short Term Money Mkt Y Acc (B8XYYQ8), Scottish Mortgage Ord (LSE:SMT), HSBC FTSE All-World Index C Acc (BMJJJF9), Greencoat UK Wind (LSE:UKW) and Vanguard FTSE Glb All Cp Idx £ Acc (BD3RZ58).  Meanwhile, two funds dropped down the list and two rose in popularity.

Just one fund dropped off, Primary Health Properties (LSE:PHP), which made way for Vanguard LifeStrategy 100% Equity A Acc (B41XG30).

The risers were Vanguard LifeStrategy 80% Equity A Acc (B4PQW15) (up one place to second) and City of London Ord (LSE:CTY) (up one place to fifth).  

Vanguard’s LifeStrategy range is a fund of funds strategy, using Vanguard’s own index range to give exposure to global stock and bond markets for a 0.22% fee.  

City of London is a UK Equity Income investment trust, which yields 4.3%. It has increased its annual dividend for 59 consecutive years.  

The funds that dropped down the rankings this week were L&G Global Technology Index I Acc (B0CNH16) (falling one place to third) and Artemis Global Income I Acc (B5ZX1M7) (falling one place to sixth).  

Both have delivered exceptional long-term returns. L&G Tech has an excellent long-term record, up 661% over 10 years, while Artemis Global Income is up 195%. Both are top quartile performers compared with peers over the past five years, according to data from FE Analytics.  

Funds and trusts section written by ii’s Sam Benstead.